IBM Champions for Growth: Get the critical skills you need

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The ability to work collaboratively with suppliers, partners, and peers can possibly make the difference between success and failure in the age of the next generation ecosystem. In terms of creating and delivering value, enterprises are becoming increasingly interdependent. Likewise, this interdependence is helping them to learn from each other by transferring skills in new and exciting ways.

The IBM Champions for Growth program enables our brightest experts to take their IBM experiences and knowledge to help partners in our ecosystem. In this way, our people have the opportunity to develop their skills and expand their careers by working directly for Business Partners and clients for an agreed-upon timeframe.

At the same time, the IBM Business Partners get exceptional IBM expertise from our top performers within the desired field. Thus, when a partner enterprise wishes to penetrate a new market or building a new opportunity through the use of IBM technology, they have the chance of temporarily hiring one or more IBMers to complete the task successfully.

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Advectas utilized the IBM Champions for Growth program effectively

Our IBM Business Partner from Sweden, Advectas, is helping clients improve their decision-making by the use of a combination of BI (Business Intelligence) and Data Science. As the company grew, they sought to expand their operations to the Danish market and decided to approach us at IBM for help.

Accordingly, Morten Albrechtsen, an IBM Business Intelligence pre-sales specialist, joined Advectas under the IBM Champions for Growth program. This is his story: 

I began my IBM career a little over five years ago. Specializing in predictive maintenance, I developed a particular expertise in the then-emerging machine learning technology and how it could be used to help clients identify and solve potential problems in the production line. During that time, I worked with a number of business partners here in Denmark to accelerate their adoption of IBM analytics solutions. As my network of partner relationships expanded, so my role became increasingly partner-centric.

Looking to formalize that aspect of my role, in 2018 I began talking to the IBM Champions for Growth team. It just so happened that at that time Advectas was looking for the kind of skills and experience that I had to offer.

Initially, I joined Advectas a pre-sales role, but over the course of 2019, I have been able to expand into customer-facing and commercial support. For example, at the moment I’m working with a customer who wants to automate their forecasting. Despite this being is a first-of-a-kind case for Advectas, my IBM contacts and my experience of working at the heart of the IBM portfolio have enabled me to help Advectas to build the solution and – as I’m doing now – prototype and demo it for the customer.

My Champions for Growth journey has become a rich learning experience for both IBM and Advectas, teaching both enterprises how the other works and how we can mutually use IBM’s technology to its fullest potential within Advectas’ clients. We’re even building new products with IBM technology; something we simply couldn’t have done without the insights that the closer relationship gives us.

I leave the final word to Advectas’ CEO, Christian Riekehr, a passionate advocate of the Champions for Growth program.

“Advectas has a strong relationship with IBM going back many years to our initial work with Cognos in 2006. The key to our joint success in partnership is a close relationship between IBM and our people. That enables us able to get instant insights into new products, upgrades and value propositions. Champions for Growth helps us know and understand each other better- and that of course means better service for our clients.”

We can also help you with new skills and expertise

In the ever-changing digital industry, in which IBM and its Business Partners operate in, the demand for skilled and experienced IBMers is high. If you are interested in learning more about the program and how we can help explore new opportunities with your enterprise, please visit our PartnerWorld page to learn how to get started with IBM Champions for Growth.

Furthermore, feel free to contact me directly at LOH@dk.ibm.com for any further questions or advice.